


The Suicide Murders

by Xuelong



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Murder Mystery, true detective season 2 of my dreams
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-03-16 14:01:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3491003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xuelong/pseuds/Xuelong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gambit and Psylocke end up tracking an unusual mutant serial killer in the desolate southwest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Canonical Notes: Set before Onslaught-ish. I still read the comics but the later Gambit has lost a lot of what made him interesting in the early X-Men comics. And poor Psylocke, she just kindof stands around and looks good in most of the comics, or just does whatever the current arc requires, without much thought to continuity. I was always interested in her as a character, especially with the whole Kwannon/Revanche run. 
> 
> Acknowledgements: I love Valerie Jones, Dandelion, Tangerine, and 'The Most Important Thing' by Alestar is one of my faves. You'll probably see some nods to their work here or there.
> 
> By the way, I'm looking for a beta to read later chapters. Get in touch at xuelong at mail dot com if you're interested. Thanks!

Chapter 1

Cyclops tossed the opened manila envelope on the table. “It’s grisly.” He warned.

Wolverine reached over first to pull the contents out. The glossy photos inside were indeed covered in scenes of agony and the human body reduced to meat. Logan passed them one by one to Betsy without comment, who looked at them without any reaction.

Psylocke. He’d like to say that they’d gone past her flirtations with him, her hellbent attempts to destroy his marriage. “Kwannon…” She’d blamed stiffly, shortly after Japan. True to her word, she rarely said more than two words to him since then outside of briefings and combat. The leader part of him grudgingly accepted her as useful to the team, dispassionate in their work together. But the other part, the man, felt a visceral disgust roil up inside of him around her, setting his jaw on edge. 

“Who figured out the connection?” Logan said, interrupting him. On the surface they looked like suicides, no matter how grisly.

“A FBI agent reached out to us through one of Charles’ contacts. The people disappeared for weeks, their bank accounts wiped out, then this. She thinks it might be a telepath, controlling their minds.”

Betsy nodded once. “A telepath who forces their victims to kill themselves.” She tossed the last of the photos on the table. “It would take a strong telepath to force someone to do this to themselves. Not to mention the…discomfort of being inside someone’s mind at the moment of death.”

“Maybe they like it.” Logan said, voice dry. Scott liked him best in ‘business mode’, when his years of experience made him downright level-headed. As long as he wasn’t going out of his way to dig at Scott, he didn’t mind the other man, really. He could even forget the Canuck was in love with his wife. What incestuous lives they led sometimes.

Betty pursed her lips, “Is it wise to send Wolverine along? This telepath could control him.”

“Let him try,” Wolverine said, flexing his knuckles.

Scott interrupted, “This is far too dangerous to send one person. You need backup, Psylocke.” He brought up the map of the area, “Not to mention that this person tends to run in some rough circles.”

“You’re not gonna blend in too good with the roughnecks and the locals down there, darlin’.” Wolverine finished.

Betsy shrugged, not rising to the bait. 

“If that’s all, I’ve booked tickets for you two to fly up the day after tomorrow.” Scott said, signaling that they were dismissed. The mission was too open-ended to give them the blackbird, not to mention that $300 for their tickets was significantly cheaper than the jet fuel needed to fly the ‘bird to New Mexico and back.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“Damn it,” Scott said, the curse weak. There was nothing to be done, and he was almost used to it.

“Honey, it had to be important for Wolverine to disappear before a mission.” Jean said, running her fingernails across his scalp. 

“Wolverine doesn’t give a damn about the mission, he just runs off whenever he feels like it,” Scott answered angrily, pulling away to pace their living room angrily.

Jean lay on the couch, her leg on a pillow, encased in a thick cast. She’d broken it in a heated battle in Milwaukee of all places, scaring Scott half to death. But now he was almost thankful. In his heart of hearts, he didn’t want to send his wife chasing a serial killer in the unfriendly territory.

“You should send Remy,” Jean said, between spoonfuls of Campbells chicken noodle Scott had heated up for her.

Scott froze mid-pace. “That’s not a good idea.”

Jean raised a russet eyebrow, “Why not?”

“He and Psylocke don’t get along.” Scott answered. It was true. There wasn’t anything obvious to point to. A comment here, body language. They even sparred often, but hurt each other as often as not. Scott had yelled at them about it more than once, it certainly seemed like they were out to kill each other more than once when he’d come into the danger room. 

Jean shrugged, “Who gets along with her anyway?” Her tone was acrid, not bothering to hide her dislike. “Except Warren.”

Scott was silent, turning to the window. Jean liked Gambit, strangely enough. The man went out of his way to have her back in a firefight, which Scott could hardly begrudge. And despite his constant flirting, Scott didn’t feel jealous like he did with Wolverine. 

That being said, he trusted Gambit on this mission about as far as he could throw him. He tried not to send the Cajun out without the team. His ambiguous morality set Scott on edge. God knew what he’d do on a mission like this. Would he really deliver the killer to the authorities? On the flip side, his thief’s mind was perfect for decoding this riddle, and he could certainly handle himself as well as Wolverine. 

It was Scott’s turn to shrug as he turned back to his wife. “Well, let’s give it a shot.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Gambit bit back a sigh. Flying coach to Albuquerque with Betsy Braddock was not what he would consider fun. He’d laughed when Scott told him. Not that the man had ever joked a day in his life, but it could have been the first time.

But no. ‘This is an order, not a request,’ was Scott’s reply. 

He pulled his long legs in from the aisle as the drink cart went by, giving Helen the flight attendant a killer smile that she mirrored. He didn’t care if it was a cliché, he loved flirting with a pretty flight attendant. She was a bit plain, aside from a wide, generous mouth.

The tray table clattering at his elbow broke his train of thought. He glanced at Betsy who gave him a withering look, as if she knew what dirty things he was thinking. He wouldn’t admit it, but she unsettled him–he sometimes felt like she could actually read him, despite his nearly impenetrable shields. He didn’t like her at all.

At the beginning, he’d tried to charm her. He’d laid it on pretty thick even, especially when her muscular, sweaty body pressed against his when they sparred in the danger room. Like him, she knew she was extraordinarily good-looking and sent out mixed signals like crazy, leading him on then cutting him down with a comment or cold stare. Maybe it was just that simple, that they played too much of the same game and instead of finding commonality, they grated each other, sending sparks flying.

In any case, he matched her coolness with indifference, turning away to ignore her. 

~

 

They landed without event, Helen the flight attendant’s phone number saved on his iphone. He sat outside the car rental place and smoked, making Betsy deal with renting them a car. It was summer, hotter than New York. The lack of humidity made it feel less hot, but it was parching, like constantly being thirsty. 

Betsy came striding out without so much as a glance at him. He put out his cigarette with a muttered curse and followed her, both their luggage in tow. They were parked in the hinterlands, but by then Remy had buried his irritation as deeply as possible. 

“I’ll drive,” he offered. Betsy fixed him with her cold eyes and tossed him the keys without a response. He beeped the car open, a soulless Ford Fusion, and she swanned into the passenger seat, leaving him with the bags. 

They drove silently into Albuquerque, neither of them bothering with the radio. He didn’t mind–thieves didn’t prattle and make small talk, except for the sake of deception. 

They went to the hotel, where a message from the FBI agent was waiting for them. ‘Billys across the street, back booth, 10pm’. He showed it Betsy while they checked in, the fat woman behind the desk with as much disinterest a person could have. It was an aging Clarion, booked on the agent’s recommendation. 

The ice machine on their floor buzzed loudly. He was in 310 and Betsy was next door in 308. “Be ready at 9:30pm.” She ordered as she went into her room, silent steps on the tired reddish carpet.

~

 

Remy had zero desire to sit in his depressing room, so he went for a drive. He stopped at a liquor store first for some whiskey, thinking of the ice machine. He’d dressed down, as usual, but it fit the area. He blended in with his tattered jeans and hooded sweatshirt. Ray-bans hid his most distinguishing feature. 

The area by their hotel had a rough feeling. Strip clubs and seedy bars sat in cracked parking lots among gas stations and dollar stores. There were a lot of working-class people, and a lot of rough looking men. 

He stopped in a strip club with a buffet next. He didn’t really enjoy watching strippers, it depressed him, especially a strip club on the rough side of Albuquerque. But it gave him a feeling for the city, what kind of trouble a person could get into. He chatted with ‘Mindy’, who was more than happy to talk for $100. She had a faint but ragged scar on her ribs that he was fairly certain was a knife wound.

“My asshole ex,” she sighed, when he asked. “He’s a meth junkie, lost his job, his house, everything.” 

His last stop was a hunting shop. He used a driver license of a guy he’d pickpocketed on flight over, the photo looked kindof like Remy if it was dark enough. The shop owner certainly didn’t look twice, just made Remy fill out some paperwork before letting him pick out a nice .22. He got three knives too. He didn’t think he’d need any of it, but if he did, he wanted to be prepared.


	4. Chapter 4

Agent Rona Pierce was a big woman, who walked in the awkward way of women that size. She wasn’t fat, just tall, six foot, and big-boned. 

They glanced at each other, for once in silent agreement.

‘Easy, Remy…’ Betsy thought at him.

“Agent Pierce,” he said, not getting up. “I’m Remy, dis is Elisabeth.” He nodded her way, face without expression. 

“You saw the file?” She said, without preamble. She sat heavily and ordered a beer. Her voice was higher than Betsy expected.

“We did,” he answered. “Can you get us t’ see de body? De last girl?”

Betsy blinked in surprise. They hadn’t discussed a plan, and this wouldn’t have been her idea. The ‘last girl’, Anna Thompson, had pushed her head into a circular saw.

Pierce nodded, in consideration, not agreement. The woman was hard to read, with the natural mental shields that some people just seemed to have. “He’s pushing it more, getting more creative. Its getting some attention, finally.”

“Mebbe dats what he wants…” Remy replied, picking at the label on his beer bottle. Betsy had opted for water.

Pierce shrugged, “The shrinks would say he’s escalating, needs more of a rush.”

“How certain are you that these are all connected?” Betsy finally piped in. 

Pierce looked at her evenly. “Certain? That’s the problem, why the bureau won’t make this an official case.” She took a sip of her beer and leaned back. “One of the troopers had three of the cases pinned above her desk, and the locals have been talking about it. No one has really taken it seriously. I mean, we’ve had mutant serial killers before, but they’re more obvious.”

“So how did you put it together?” Remy asked.

She shrugged again, just the right shoulder, like a tic. “First I looked for cases of weird suicides. You know, unusual ones. When you register a suicide in a police database, most of the times they’ve got ‘hanging’, ‘gunshot’, ‘drugs’, the usual, then an ‘other’. Sometimes they don’t bother. I got lucky finding Jennifer Roberts, she was listed as a hanging, which I guess is technically true.”

She took another slug of her beer. “Then I checked them against emptied bank accounts, missing cars, that sort of thing. A lot of suicides empty their bank accounts before…but in these, no one knew where the money left.”

Remy didn’t look up from his bottle, “So there could be a lot more than is there.”

Pierce shrugged again, one shoulder. “Or less. But yeah. Especially any early cases. I mean, I’d guess this guy tried to be subtle at first, really covering his tracks.” She sighed. “Anyway, the body. Let’s go.”

~

“Aren’t you worried about bringing us here?” Betsy asked, after Pierce had signed them in. The bored security guard at the front barely glanced up at them.

Pierce didn’t stop, talking over her shoulder as they walked into what looked like any open-plan office, albeit with lots of mugshots and crime notices on the walls. It was empty aside from someone working in the far corner.

“Does it look like I should? We don’t get a lot of stuff like this, more like hunting for terrorists, helping the DEA, but yeah, mostly homeland security stuff. I signed you in as consultants if anyone asks.”

They crossed over into an addition to the building, in the back. It was a morgue, but a very tiny one. Pierce pulled open one of the refrigerated drawers, filling the air with a cool mist.

As a trained killer, and then as an X-Men member, Betsy had seen her fair share of death and destruction. She couldn’t help but flinch at this. 

The lower part of the girl’s face was intact, but the saw had pushed aside her skull, cracking her face open down to her nose. Meat, especially the living kind, wasn’t as clean to cut as wood, so there was ragged flesh and bone around the wound. 

If Gambit had any reaction, he kept it hidden. In fact, he leaned toward the grisly wound, studying her and her tragic face. 

“Coroner didn’t find anything. Nothing under the fingernails, no drugs in the system, nothing really.” Pierce said.

Remy ignored her, reaching out to move her head to the side to look at the back of her neck. Pierce looked startled at that, but hid it quickly.

He kept inspecting her and it made Betsy nervous. Did he expect her to inspect the body too, or worse, did he think she had nothing to contribute? What was really pretending he could find, not being a doctor or forensic expert? The longer they stood there, the more annoyed she got. She folded her arms unconsciously.

“How long d’ you think he controls them?” Gambit asked after an interminable time studying the girls’ feet.

She saw the question catch Pierce off-guard. “Are you the psychic?”

“Telepath,” Betsy corrected, answering the question. “No, that’s me.”

Pierce gave her the almost universally uneasy look that people got when they thought about Betsy reading their minds. To her credit, she looked back to Gambit.

“Weeks. Maybe months.”

Gambit and Psylocke shared another glance. Pierce interrupted, “What?”

Remy stepped back and said, “Let’s talk somewhere else.” It was his first acknowledgment of the eeriness of the body in front of them.

~

They sat in an awkward little conference room that didn’t seem like it got much use. There was a dusty mug sitting on top of a file cabinet in the corner that looked like someone had beaten it with a lead pipe. Pierce flipped a whiteboard at the end of the table around to reveal all the victims with notes, in a timeline.

Diana Martinez, 19, March 2008. Mauled by dogs.  
Jose Galvez, 36, April 2010. Hanging.  
Henry Red Cloud, 24, September 2010. Burned alive.  
Mary Deschene, 68, January 2012. Self-inflicted head wound.  
Homer Landry, 41, November 2012. Electrocution.  
Vivi Diaz, 25, February 2013. Exsanguination.  
Nita Nearpaw, 29, October 2013. Drinking drain cleaner.  
Anna Thompson, 17, May 2014. Head in a circular saw.

Gambit studied them as carefully as the bodies. “Boys, girls, young, old, black, white, brown, red…ain’t dese serial killers supposed to be more particular?”

Pierce sat, the chair squeeking. “Well, here’s my theory, and you tell me if its crazy. That’s why I asked for your help, I don’t know anything about mutants beyond Google.” She didn’t look up at them. “Maybe this is a young guy, not very educated, gets his ability. First he probably uses it like a peeping tom, spying on people’s thoughts. Then he discovers he can control people. But its still crimes of opportunity, the early stages. Now he’s getting experienced. He’s picking victims, sexualizing it. Torturing them and getting off on the murders.”

“That’s why the last three are young women?” Betsy asked.

Pierce shook her head, “I mean, I really have no idea. It’s just a theory. But you look at Mary…We found a room in the basement where he was keeping her, maybe for longer than a year. He hid there, just took her out to get groceries and cash from time to time. She waved to the neighbors when she was getting the mail. Who knows how much cash he got from her.”

Remy nodded, also sitting. “Maybe its not about the cash anymore. He can force someone to go to the ATM then wipe their minds.”

“Maybe he feels like God, just controlling people like dolls.” She said.

“So, you didn’t find any fingerprints in the houses? The basement?” Betsy asked.

Pierce shrugged again. “We did, that’s how I confirmed some of these, though he’s not in the system. The weird thing though…” She trailed off.

“Yes?” Betsy prodded.

“The basement was full of fingerprints, but almost all of them were from the doer…inside the room.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sex! You've been warned (or encouraged).

Dark eyes, nearly as dark as his, flicked towards him, as Remy pretended to check his phone. They watched and watched, interested but wary.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh, so he did neither. Men. They wanted what they wanted, he should know. And the bartender wanted him as sure as rain was wet. 

It was 3:00am and he was sitting in one of the Indian casinos that were ubiquitous around the area. It was the biggest lead they had, every victim was a native or connected to one of the reservations. Nita Nearpaw had worked here, serving drinks. Which is how Remy found himself at the bar here.

He itched to work the tables behind him, but that wasn’t his purpose tonight.

“Another?” The bartender asked him.

Remy glanced up at him through long lashes, calculating. “Sure.”

The man had given him a double take when he’d sat down an hour ago. The eyes, sunglasses weren’t allowed in a casino.   
“Waiting for someone?” He asked, serving Remy his drink. His voice was unusually deep and sonorous, with the lilting quality of a tribal accent. 

“No,” Remy answered curtly, but lifted his head, inviting another question. Mixed signals, like Betsy.

“Not gonna gamble?” He asked, pretending to clean the bar.

“No,” Remy answered again, just the tiny hint of a smile crinkling his eyes to show he was teasing.

The man smiled back, “Ok. You here for work then?”

Remy shrugged, “Yup.”

“Hmmm.” Remy got the feeling that the man wasn’t much of a talker, despite his job.

~

Betsy couldn’t sleep. It bothered her that Remy had given her the slip, going god knows where. For all she knew, he thought the whole mission pointless and had gone off on a bender. In Albuquerque. 

She sighed, putting aside her book and turning off the light. As she closed her eyes, a door closed in the hallway, suspiciously close. She reached out with her mind, the whispers of all the thoughts in the hotel rushing over her. She pushed them aside, not forcefully, as she used to try when her powers first appeared. The trick was slowly focus. Betsy thought of it like moving a great ship with a simple pole.

There.

Far away, Remy tended to be untraceable, a psychic shadow. Close, as he was now, she sensed him, a crackle of static on the astral plane. And close to him was another mind. A stranger. A man, as men’s minds had as distinct a feeling as teas had flavors. 

As the cliché went, this man’s mind was thinking of one thing. Lust opened his mind as clearly as a light in a window, and it was hard to shut him out. Intense emotions lit up the astral plane, attracting telepaths like moths. 

Betsy peeked. Just a bit, she told herself. After all, they were practically on top of her. 

Her senses were suddenly full of Remy. The flavors of tobacco and whiskey in his mouth. His body underneath, still dressed, hard as a mannequin’s. Hot skin.

Betsy shut him out firmly. She was definitely awake now. She wished she could unsee her eavesdropping. She was used to catching the often obscene fantasies people tended to have about Remy. They weren’t that different that they had of her. But that was fantasy. 

She lay awake, staring at the tiny red light of the fire alarm above her bed. The elevator opened and two women laughed in the hallway, drunk. The air conditioning came on, and with it a slight tapping noise like a screw in a tin can that would drive Betsy mad.

A soft thunk by her head. The ice machine or…

She sighed. Gambit had to know she was there, just inches away through flimsy drywall. Another soft thud and someone laughed, a man’s rich baritone.

To hell with it.

She couldn’t half-peek anymore than she could half-see in real life. Sure, she used a feather touch, only picking up the man’s projections rather than scanning his mind. As if that made a difference.

Scent and heat exploded in her mind, along with the bizarre sensation of men’s arousal that her body always seemed to try to reconcile. No matter how many times she felt an erection, or a man’s climax, it always held discord for her. The weird sense of pushing off an orgasm, instead of building towards it. 

Remy was uncircumcised, which she already knew from the handful of times she’d seen him naked. He didn’t prattle on like she’d have expected, just breathed heavily and occasionally murmured something under his breath. The man, William, wanted Remy so badly he ached with it, his thoughts skipping and racing nearly incoherent. 

Glancing up, the sight of Remy’s body hot with sweat, his ribcage rocking with his motions, aroused him so much that he wanted nothing more than to put his hand on himself and come on that warm skin. At the same time, every time he drew the other man’s cock into his mouth, he imagined that wide mouth on his own, his hand tight in the white man’s long auburn hair. 

It drove Betsy crazy herself, wide awake in her bed. She pushed out of the other man’s mind with sheer force of will. Her body ached with the echo of arousal, but she felt too guilty and embarrassed by what she’d done to do anything. There was something line-crossing about that, just as she wouldn’t hunch out someone’s window and masturbate to the sight inside. 

She pushed the covers aside and turned on the TV to the weather channel, then climbed into the shower. The room was mercifully quiet when she got out and she fell asleep before she even had a chance to think about anything.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Betsy is a continuity nightmare, but I took a stab at it.

“Elizabeth!” Her father, Dr. James Braddock, yelled from the downstairs of their beautiful home in Essex. 

Her blood ran cold. Her father had never raised his hand to her, played the part of dutiful father. But from an early age, she’d known her father favored her brothers. He only really seemed interested in her when he was angry.

“Yes, sir?” She asked, putting on her best proper 13-year-old British girl act. 

“I received a call at the office that you weren’t at school yesterday. Where were you!?” He raised his voice slightly, eyes searing through her.

Damn. Batty old Mrs. Helens barely remembered to take attendance most of the time. Of course she had yesterday, when she’d skipped last period to head down to the quay with her friends and flirt with boys. 

“I was there, sir! Old Mrs. Helens doesn’t even remember where Germany is, let alone who I am!” She lied.

Her father sighed at her whining voice. “Don’t use that tone, Elizabeth. You sound like a pub waitress.” He reached out and grabbed her shoulder, almost hard enough to hurt. “You are a Braddock. You have a duty to this family, to comport yourself properly. I rely on you, girl.”

She straightened, swallowing hard. “Yes, sir.”

~

Betsy sighed, washing her face with icy cold water. One of her mother’s beauty secrets. She somehow woken up to that old memory of her father, something she hadn’t thought about in years. Her brothers never seemed to miss the man, but his death had hung on her a long time. 

It’d been a few years since Revanche had died, along with her original body. She still missed it, though. She knew no one would have sympathy for her, switching from a beautiful caucasian body to an Asian one. They would never understand. She missed her curly hair, her “outie” belly button, the slight gap in her teeth. The face of a stranger in the mirror.

She knocked sharply on Remy’s door. He answered with surprising promptness, shirtless. “Come in, cher.” He said, holding the door open for her.

The room was empty, the window cracked open to look over the mostly empty parking lot. Gambit ignored her as he pulled a black tshirt on. Last night’s peeping wanted so badly to invade her thoughts, but she pushed it away.

“Dere’s someone we should talk t’.” He snatched the car keys off the cheap dresser and pulled the door open for her. 

She raised an eyebrow. “Who?” 

“Nita’s sister. She been tellin’ everyone Nita was possessed by demons.” They reached the car, the day already hot. 

Betsy got straight to the point. “How did you find this out?”

“Asked around,” he answered. It wasn’t a lie, she supposed.

~

Nita’s sister lived on a nice street on the edge of a rundown neighborhood. It was a simple ranch house, nothing extravagant but it had been painted in the past year and a rock garden in the front yard was well kept.

They rang the doorbell. Betsy smoothed her simple oxford shirt. She was wearing simple linen slacks. It was preppy, something Jean would wear. She didn’t like to show her body like Betsy did, and often wore ‘uniforms’ like this. With her purple hair, she couldn’t exactly blend in, but she’d packed with an eye towards discretion.

The door opened, “Yes?”

Remy smiled and the astral plane crackled with static. “We’re looking f’ Mary Sanders.”

Betsy did a surface scan. The woman was boringly ordinary, wary of them, turned on by Remy, thinking of her grocery list. “That’s me.” She answered bluntly.

“We’re helping with de investigation int’ Nita’s death. Can we come in?” Remy said, equally as straightforward.

She narrowed her eyes, but stepped back, holding the door open for them. Her mind lit up with thoughts of her sister. Betsy saw a smiling woman dancing at a wedding. And then Nita’s body in the cold of a morgue.

“I’m Remy, dis is Elizabeth.” Gambit never called her that, the clipped syllables sounding foreign from him.

They sat on the couch, Mary not offering them any drinks. “Do you know who killed my sister?”

“How do you know she killed herself?” Betsy finally spoke.

Mary scowled at them. She wasn’t an attractive woman, with pock-marked skin and thick neck. “That girl was too silly to go kill herself. She had no reason. She loved her job, loved to party. And…”

She paused, looking down. “She went missing about a week before she died. I called the cops, here and on the res, but they didn’t care. But anyway, a friend of mine called to say she was down at Rick’s, this bar. I drove down there, and she was there, just drinking at the bar like it was the weekend. I grabbed her shoulder…that girl had no idea who I was. Shoved me, started cursing a blue streak at me. Didn’t even sound like her. That wasn’t her, not even close. Like the devil wearing her body.”

They all glanced at the oversized crucifix on the living room wall. “She a Christian women too?” Remy asked.

Mary relaxed a shade, “Nita? You kiddin’? That girl partied too hard and cared too little. I knew she’d get into trouble on of these days.”

“Then what happened?”

“She ran out of there and I didn’t see her again-” For a moment the woman’s hard facade folded, her voice catching. “I didn’t see her alive again.”

“And her house?” Remy encouraged.

“Filthy. Nita never was what you’d call ‘organized’, but this was terrible. Rotten food, garbage on the floor, mice in the kitchen.” Mary clucked with disgust.

“So you believe she was…possessed?” Betsy questioned, keeping her voice neutral.

Mary raised her eyebrows and shrugged, “No, not really. I mean, this world we live in today…and Nita was like you, y’know?”

That got both their attention. “Nita was a mutant?” Betsy asked.

“Well….yes. We didn’t advertise it, y’know. No offense.” Mary apologized. “She could make water. Not a lot, just make the ceiling drip and stuff. That’s why it was so strange that she drank bleach. Like a sign, or something, you know?”

They nodded, digesting the new information.

Mary shifted and stood, looking a little uncomfortable, “I’m sorry, I’m really late for mass…”

Remy stood gracefully. “T’anks f’ your time, Ms. Sanders.” 

~

“What do you think?” Betsy asks, maybe surprising them both. Had she ever asked him that before? Maybe in the early days, when he’d flirted with her, they’d had some idle conversations at dinner. She knew something really off had happened when she’d felt like she was truly losing her mind, when Revanche had shown up. 

*I’d rather…* what? A shred of memory, Remy’s smooth voice rough with irritation, anger. His hand so hard around her wrist that pain arced down to her elbow. And that’s it. 

And after, she hadn’t wanted to know, had been cold and rude to him. The natural chasm between them–she, born and bred superhero, he, the career criminal–widened so quickly she couldn’t put her finger on when it had become a permanent thing between them, as immovable as the Juggernaut. 

Remy inclined his head to acknowledge the question, eyes focused forward on driving them somewhere. “Y’ mean was it a coincidence that Nita was a mutant, or is this guy hunting mutants?”

Betsy pursed her lips, “Where are we going?”

“Nita’s place. Unless you…” He tapped his temple.

She turned away to look out the window. She’d been scanning since they’d arrived and hadn’t sensed anything more useful than Jean had with Cerebro when they’d left. She was tempted to make a comment about what she’d ‘seen’ in Gambit’s room last night, but bit it back. “No, nothing. I haven’t sensed a single telepath since we’ve gotten here.”

“Maybe he’s powerful, like Phoenix.” Gambit offered. 

Betsy wasn’t sure if that was a dig at her, but treated it like mere statement of fact. She remembered now why she didn’t try to speak with the Cajun. The verbal sparring was tiring. 

“A powerful telepath could evade Cerebro.” She agreed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things, also stuff. And Walmart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still chewing on this, thanks for your kudos!

Aside from a few strands of hair that stuck to the Cajun’s neck like tattooed ink lines, the man seemed unaffected by the heat. They sat outside Ann Landry’s apartment at three in the afternoon, Homer Landry’s junkie 22-year-old daughter. It was as much a lead as they’d had in the past ten days, which was to say, not much of one.  
  
Betsy thought back to the board in Pierce’s office. It was growing more cluttered as they helped her: a car repair receipt Remy had found in Nita’s apartment, a list of phone calls from Diana Martinez’s home phone, a photo of the ex-con who worked at the hardware store where someone had bought the circular saw that had killed Anna Thompson. Lots of mugshots, lots of receipts from the same bar Mary Sanders had confronted her sister.  
  
As far as Betsy could tell, all it really showed was that Albuquerque was a small city with a mid-sized drug problem and not enough bars to drink at. She felt like they were no closer to solving anything than when they’d flown out here.  
  
Remy lit a cigarette and glanced her way. “Aren’t you hot?”  
  
The answer was self-evident as her last clean shirt, long-sleeved and silk, was stuck to her as if she’d swam in it. They’d been sitting here for the past two hours with the window rolled down, as if there was even a hint of breeze in this desert.  
  
“What do you think?” She replied, dryly.  
  
“We could go to Walmart…” Remy offered.  
  
She laughed, almost a guffaw, still keeping her eyes on the dilapidated apartment complex. “No.”  
  
“Suit y’self,” he replied.  
  
A stilted silence sat between them. “What?” She demanded, finally turning to look at the man.  
  
He shrugged, turning to blow smoke out the window. “Y’ ever been t’ Walmart?”  
  
“Have you?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
She narrowed her eyes, reflexively reaching out to read the man and getting the usual static. He put the cigarette butt out and leaned back against the seat, shutting his eyes. The dismissal irritated her even more, though she wouldn’t dare show it.  
  
Instead she reached out with her mind to Ann’s flickering presence on the astral plane. She’d shot up a few minutes ago, lowering any natural shields. Her memories flickered across her mind’s eye like a disjointed television show. Her mother laughing, her ex-boyfriend shouting, her uncle playing ‘the secret game’ in her bedroom as a child.  
  
“Let’s leave,” Betsy said. “There’s nothing here.”  
  
~  
  
Back at the hotel she took a long shower. Set to cold, the water was still lukewarm. She carefully brushed her long hair free of tangles and simply sat enjoying the air conditioning set to its maximum, groaning and sputtering a bit like a tired truck engine. Hungry and tired at the same time, she lay back and closed her eyes. Not intending to nap, she sank immediately into a deep sleep.  
  
When she woke, it was night outside and the room was freezing. She was ravenous, so she tied her hair back and put on a sundress thrown over the one chair in the room. She opened the door to her room and laughed in surprise. Tied to the door was a big shopping bag with a distinctive Walmart logo on the side.  
  
~  
  
For almost two weeks she’d been scanning the astral plane for their killer with no luck. That night was no exception. Perhaps she’d ring the mansion in the morning and ask the Professor to try again with Cerebro.  
  
She fell asleep easily enough, despite her earlier nap. She dreamt of flying her old plane, with her father in to co-pilot seat of all people. Then he turned in to to Matsu’o and the plane was on fire, nothing she did seemed to save them as the plane crashed and crashed forever.  She woke up in a sweat, wrapped so tightly in the bedcover that it took her a minute to get loose.  
  
She didn’t remember falling back to sleep, though her dream this time was completely different. She was in bed and it was so real, so lucid, she thought it was her own bed. Suddenly a cockroach skittered across the dirty cover and when she tried to jump up, the dream shifted.

 _She was in the desert, there was a campfire. Then she was curled up in tight space, cramped, her body ached, joints on fire. She rocked and realized she was in the trunk of a car.  She fumbled for an eternity until she found the housing for the taillight. She pulled at the wiring desperately until she finally just slammed her fist against it and amazingly the light popped out._  
  
_She pressed her face against the space and saw nothing but the most nondescript road, probably outside of the city. All she saw was desert, power lines, and the road. Then they slowed and turned in somewhere. Gravel crunched under the tires loudly._  
  
_A car door opened and she strained against the opening. It looked like a gas station. She could just make out the red of a sign, and the letters ‘IANT’._  
  
Betsy threw the covers aside and threw her mind back onto the astral plane. She searched and searched, but it was as useless as when she went to sleep. The memory had already taken the fuzzy quality of a dream  
  
She sprang into action, pulling on shorts and grabbing the key, she ran next door and pounded on Remy’s door.  
  
There was no response, which wasn’t that surprising considering it was 3:30am.  
  
She pounded again, “Remy!”  
  
The door opened a crack and a sleepy red and black eye blinked at her, “Ce que?”  
  
“I found him, give me the bloody car keys!” She said in a rush.  
  
Another blink. “One sec,” he shut the door without waiting for a response.  
She was so ramped up, she almost kicked the door in. Fortunately, just a few seconds later Remy came out, jeans on, tshirt and keys in hand.  
  
He didn’t ask any questions as they tore out onto the street, the Ford Focus barely handling the first turn. She slowed down a bit.  
  
After ten minutes, she spotted the sign: GIANT. 


End file.
